Echoes in a Hollow Space

Returning once again to my old favorite, Meeting the Other Crowd: The Fairy Stories of Hidden Ireland by Eddie Lenihan and Carolyn Eve Green, to speak of fairy horses, the fíor-làr. There are many, many stories in Celtic lore about horse spirits, but Mr. Lenihan’s informants say that they are generally born to regular mares. There’s some debate what makes a horse fairy instead of ordinary, because to outward appearances they look like any other horse. One story goes that you know you’ve got one of those “funny fish” when the gestation of the foal takes 366 days—the old, magical formula of a year and a day. Most foals gestate in ten or eleven months (according to the old timer telling this story).

Like as not when you have a fairy horse they will be a good horse, but given to disappearing for short spells of time when the fairies require its services. But never fear, the fairies play fair in this regard. If you’re depending on that horse, they’ll substitute another until it’s time for the fíor-làr to be returned to you.

And then there’s this, a more spirit-horse version of fairy horses, taken from The Paranormalist.

He recounts the story told him by author, Herbie Brennan:

Shortly thereafter, as Herbie and Jim turned to leave the rath, along the top of the earthen ring, there suddenly appeared a herd of approximately twenty to twenty-five tiny, white horses “no bigger than cocker spaniels”, in the words of Mr. Brennan. The tiny horses galloped along the top of the earthwork, disappearing down the opposite side. Herbie and Jim ran out of the rath andto the other side to see what had happened to to the tiny horses, but they had vanished. Neither man had any explanation for what they had just seen.

Some years later, Herbie told the story of the white horses to his good friend, the late author Desmond Leslie. Leslie had a fascination with mythology and was quite knowledgeable about the subject. Upon hearing Herbie’s account of the tiny horses, Leslie replied, “Dear boy, don’t you know what those were?”. Herbie replied that he had no idea whatsoever what they were, only that he’d seen them. “Those were faerie horses,” Mr. Leslie continued. “They’re associated with the megaliths of Ireland, and there are also reports of them in Japan.”

You can watch Mr. Brennan himself tell the tale below, the first of three stories that explain how he was very reluctantly convinced in the reality of fairies through personal experience:

Watch on YouTube

I’ll have more to say about “fairy photography” one of these days, but let me conclude by saying that I think anyone who’s been around horses much—and I used to be, although sadly not so much anymore—knows that some horses just are special. Even if they don’t have unexplained disappearances to their credit, are not miniature white glowing spirits, sinister kelpies or what all, some of them do seem to have a touch of the fey. Great, dreamy-eyed beasts that they are, they often have their heads in two worlds at once and seem to know much more than the two-leggers astride them. Old souls or fairy-led, I cannot say. Just that they are special.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

I still love you, Queen Z.  You put most of them in their place.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

19 for 19!

She gave us a scare there for a bit, but you could see the instant she said, “Hey, I need to win this.”  She turned on the afterburners and gained ground with every stride.  When that happened, I swear you could hear the crowd screaming from here.  I live only a couple of miles from Hollywood Park.  It was great to see the old park filled to the rafters again like in the old days.

What a girl you are, Zenyatta.  20 for 20, please.  Stay safe and strong.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

I can see why Shakespeare didn't use this scene in Antony and Cleopatra. The vision of Antony being hoisted on a crane seems more like something out of Monty Python.

My, how the future has changed. Paleo-Future is a great blog.

Oh no! An entire web site devoted to weird. Everybody run for your lives!

Here's a sad and mysterious article about a long lost horse. The follow-up article can be read here.

Mona Lisa had high cholesterol? I suppose next you'll tell me that babies only smile because they have gas. Experts! They spoil everything.

We like to think we are the result of a steady, upward climb of hominid evolution, that we are the apex of the apes. But that's because few people have heard of our older, smarter brother, "Mycroft" Boskops.

Rachel Alexandra raced the older boys and beat them in the Woodward in Saratoga. Never happened before. She didn't beat them running away as in the past, but a head counts the same as a length. I don't believe I've ever seen Calvin use the whip on her before, and she looked tired after the race. She had to work hard for this one, but she did it.

What a filly!

I love Zenyatta, but I suspect she'd have a hard time beating Rachel.

What a year to have two such marvelous fillies.

1. Watching the races on ESPN before the Belmont, I noticed a filly named Forever Together. She got boxed in rather badly, not breaking out until the turn, then she poured on the speed and went from the back of the pack to second place. The horse in the lead, however, had too much distance on her or I do believe she would have won it. Although she's officially listed as a grey, she's got all these luscious roan highlights, black mane and tail, black stockings. Just a gorgeous, gorgeous horse. I may have to put a horse like her in a story sometime.

2. The story ideas that are most plaguing me these days, in addition to the sequel to A Rain of Angels, is an novel called Red Demon that's been on the backburner for awhile, and—surprising as hell to me—the rewrite of The Making Blood (formerly known as Night Warrior). They've both been looping through my mind quite a bit in the last month or so.

3. Nobody is more surprised than I to find myself reading Swallowing Darkness by Laurell K. Hamilton and to be thoroughly enjoying it. I thought I was done with her for good, but I guess I just can't quit her.

4. After a week on my two-week sugar purge I've lost 4.6 pounds. I am not craving fatty foods or dessert or anything extravagant. What I'm really craving are things like wheat toast, bananas, oatmeal. One more week, one more week—and if I never see another egg it will be too soon.

5. I've always liked those Dos Equis commercials, but the secret identity issue was lost on me. I always thought this guy was Maximillian Schell. Shows what I know. If hominysnark is reading this, she's probably laughing uproariously at this point.

Oh, just one more:

6. It's been over a year since I updated my "marketing spreasheet_novels" but last night I updated it.

Calvin Borel was the best part of the Derby. Good to see a man be so thrilled about something. And what a ride! From 19th place! Once Street Sense made his move, he cut through the field like a hot knife through cold butter. It was a beautiful thing to see.

He looked really bad the last time they photographed him, and I guess this was inevitable, but damn.

No way for a beautiful horse like Barbaro to end up...sickening. Just breaks my heart.